Rabo Tweeties – Twitter Awards

The Rabo Tweeties is an awards ceremony to celebrate the best of Irish businesses and Irish people on Twitter. There were 14 categories in all, including celebrity, TV, sport, Vine and business. Twitter users could vote for their favourite twitter account in each category by using the accounts Twitter handle and the relevant category hashtag.  The Winners were announced at an awards ceremony in Dublin last night.

We would like to congratulate @DoneDeal, the winner of the Twitter business category, which is the Twitter account for Ireland’s largest classifieds website. Their account has almost 12,000 followers and they are very active posting links to their blog which usually has a few posts each week, they retweet some of their followers tweets which are about an item on sale through their site. They also have competitions and news from events they are taking part in.

We would also like to congratulate @SabaDublin, another business account that won the ‘food’category. Saba is an atmospheric eatery, serving tasty Thai & Vietnamese food on Clarendon Street, in Dublin’s city centre. . They again, as you would expect are very active and have almost 2,500 followers. They tweet about all their latest offers, retweet tweets from customers who enjoyed their meals there, they also tweet about events on in the city centre such as Arthurs Day and Oktoberfest, their cooking courses and sporting events.

For businesses, it is important to also ensure that you are using your social media activity to drive your rankings on Google. By taking the time to devise a focused Social Media Strategy, you can really bring benefit to your search engine optimisation.

Is your business making the most of social media? Have you got profiles set up on all the relevant social media platforms for your business? Are you active on them? Are your search engine rankings benefiting from your social media activity? If you would like to find out how your business can take advantage of social media, contact us at Webresults.ie. We offer a full range of digital marketing services including social media account management. We also run a Web Mentor Programme, where we guide your business on how to effectively manage your own Social Media activity. You never know maybe next year your business could be a nominee or even a winner at the #RaboTweeties.

Why Businesses need to Listen to What is said on Social Media

The Importance of Social Listening:

 

Social media provides businesses with a great opportunity to connect with customers and hear what they have to say about your brand. This is all well and good; however some companies fail to actually listen to what their customers have to say. If you are going to give your customers an open forum for them to express their thoughts on your brand, then you need to monitor the conversation.

 

 

Listening to Complaints:

If people are voicing their dislike for a current product, or their dissatisfaction with the customer service they received, then you need to address this and resolve the situation quickly. There is no point in merely deleting negative posts, this angers customers and only adds fuel to the flame. Think of who posted the negative comment as an angry customer causing a fuss in a shop, however this time they can be heard by potentially thousands of people.

Negative posts on social media have a distinct way of gaining traction online. One negative post can have a domino effect, causing a string of negative posts based on previous incidents. A customer who has poor previous experience with a brand may see a post criticising this brand and this may entice them to post about their bad experience with the brand. To stop this effect it is important to respond to complaints quickly and respectively, but don’t aggravate the situation!

Listening to What Your Customers Want:

 When making changes to products or services, it is good to keep the customer in mind. Social media can be a great tool for testing some new ideas. This can be done in a friendly and casual way like ‘any suggestions for what flavour our new ice cream should be?’ Posts like this can start the conversation with your customers whilst giving you an insight as to what they actually want in comparison to what you think they want.

A great example of a company who listened to their social media fans is Cadbury. In 2003 they took their much loved Wispa bar of the shelves. However by 2007 the bar had gained quite a cult status by those who remembered the bar fondly. This brought about various social media campaigns including a Facebook campaign entitled ‘Bring Back Wispa’. This group gained a large following and eventually Cadbury listened and jumped on the band wagon, which led to a hugely successful re-launch.

Conclusion:

Listening to what your customers have to say is vital to developing strong relationships with your customers. Through social media customers can be heard by many, so it is important that you hear them also.

Listening to what your customers have to say is not only an action which is of benefit to them, more importantly it is a benefit to your business. Through listening to what they have to say, your business can gain great insights as to what your customers think about your products and services. Listening to your customers through social media can also lead to product innovation as no one knows what your customer wants more than your actual customer.

At Webresults we offer a wide range of digital marketing services including the management of social media pages. For more information on how we can help your business get the most out of social media please contact us.

The Importance of Link Building

3 Key Factors of Link Building:

 

Link building is a task combined with creating good content. Within your content there should be links to certain areas of your website. If you are talking about web services in your content piece, why not promote your own web services with a link.

A key aspect of content creation is that if it’s good, then it will get shared and linked freely by those who liked it. This is where Social Media comes in helpful for sharing content easily with your audience. You can’t however rely solely on other people linking your content so here are the 3 key aspects of link building you should incorporate into your content;

 

1) Anchor Text:

The anchor text is the textual representation of a hyperlink, for example the anchor text for this link is “this link” with the hyperlink being “www.webresults.ie”. Anchor text is important because most major search engines use it to determine what keywords are relevant to a page. For example, if you want to rank for the term “coffee shop,” then you should try to get as many links as you can with “coffee shop” as the anchor text.

 

2) Authority of Linking Domain:

The ultimate goal in link building is to get as many inbound links to your site as possible. This is important for your SEO strategy as it shows search engines that your page is of importance and offers valuable content. The more inbound links you have, then the more likely you are to rank for a certain keyword.

Having a lot of inbound links is all well and good, but having inbound links from domains that have a high authority is even better. Having inbound links from sites with high authority such as The Irish Times, is much better than having links coming from your mate Dave’s blog.

You can check the authority of a page you wish to apply an inbound link on with tools such as moz.com

 

3) Focus your links on specific pages within the website:

When building links to your website, you should focus bringing the readers to a very specific page of your website, otherwise the link is pointless. If in your content piece you are talking about a new coffee bean which will blow both your mind and taste buds, then maybe you could place a link within this piece to a page on your website explaining the variety of coffee products you have in your cafe.

After a while you will begin to see which pages on your site are getting the most visits or showing up for searches, once you see which is doing the best, continue promoting them and building more links to have it climb the rankings.

If you have any enquiries about link building, or any other digital marketing services, then please contact us.

Inbound Marketing Essentials

 

Inbound Marketing is seen by many in the industry, as an essential tool for naturally attracting a wide range of potential customers. Inbound Marketing is a non aggressive approach to making your business known to new customers and forming a bond with current ones. When it comes to good Inbound Marketing practice, here are some of the essentials.

 

Know Your Customers:

A huge factor of Inbound Marketing is providing relevant and useful content / information for your target market. To do this you need to know who your customers are and what they are interested in. A breakdown of customer demographics and interests would be ideal.

 

Research Keywords Relevant to you:

Carry out a keyword analysis for words and terms associated with your business. The objective is to target keywords with a high search rate. Have your keywords as specific as possible to approach your target market rather than approach a broad and unreliable market.

 

Have a Strategy for your Content: (Know your Objectives)

Be sure to speak to your customers about content relevant to your industry. Your aim is to speak to each customer type at each level of the “sales funnel” (Leads – Opportunities – Proposals – New Customers).

 

Create Content Frequently:

Your aim is to now create educational, thought provoking content related to your business area. Think of what you would be more likely to share or comment on, don’t focus on sales and talking about what you do.  You need to be doing this at least once a week to keep your site fresh.

 

Insert Links:

Having both internal and external links throughout your content can both help with user experience and encourage inbound links from those external websites. Try to fit in maybe 1 or 2 links in your content.

 

Include Images:

Images help break up the content for the reader making the content more presentable when done correctly. Include an image title and alt text so that search engines can pick them up.

 

Incorporate Calls to Action:

After reading your piece of content, give the reader something to do or somewhere to go, ideally back to your website!

 

Share on Social Media:

Social Media sites provide a great platform for you to get your content out there and shared. It is a great opportunity for creating more inbound links to your site.

Why use Inbound Marketing for Your Business?

Build Your Business Profile:

Present your business as the experts in your field offering relevant, helpful information, updates, tips and advice. Generally information that is helpful to your clients and prospects when they are in the market for your products/services.

Give Personality to Your Brand:

Inbound marketing enables companies to express themselves in an informal manner. They can show what their company is passionate about and what motivates them.

Build Your Business Profile on the Web:

By offering interesting, engaging content, your contacts and followers will share your information with their contacts, building your community and getting your business in front of new prospects.

Engage With Customers:                 

Inbound marketing enables your company to engage with your customers on personal level

and build strong relationships. It makes your company more approachable to the public.

Improve Your SEO:                           

Effective inbound marketing will improve your SEO. The search engines are placing more and more priority on social media activities and links when presenting search engine results. By focussing on the terms that are most relevant and building content around them on both social networks and your site, you will build up your rankings on the search engines for terms most relevant to your business. At Webresults.ie we can help you create a successful content strategy that will maximise your SEO and social media activity to drive sales for your business.

If you would like to find out how to devise and implement a successful inbound marketing strategy for your business that will build your profile and drive more high quality customers to your business, please contact Webresults.

Vine’s Growth in Social Media Marketing

Vine

Vine’s Growth in Social Media Marketing:

Over the past couple of months, Vine has taken the social media world by storm. Vine is a by-product of Twitter which shows a six second piece of constant footage or a stream of Polaroid-like shots, all done through a smartphone. Vine is said to capture the “now” better than the likes of Instagram. Companies have been quick to notice Vine’s potential in marketing and here is a look at two organisations which have harnessed Vine’s ability.

Vine Case Study: Lowes

Lowes is an American based store which sell home appliances and offers advice and ideas for DIY and home improvement. Lowe’s where quick to use Vine to advertise their services. They created a series of 6 second Vines entitled #lowesfixinsix.

Their Vines where very practical and offered their followers handy everyday improvements or “Life Hacks”. An example of this would be a Vine they created showing the viewer how to get rust of a knife using lemon juice. The videos strike a perfect balance between brand promotion and usefulness whilst gaining very positive responses from their followers. Lowe’s have also had a large surge in new followers since they started releasing these Vines.

While six seconds is a very short time to explain a tip, Lowe’s where very creative in how they used the stop motion functionality of the Vine app and showed how easy their improvements could be. As a vine Video plays in a loop and is only 6 seconds long, it is easy for the viewer to watch the video repeatedly.

Watch Lowe’s Vine videos here

 Vine Case Study: ASOS

ASOS is a UK-based online-only retailer. Recent research showed that people preferred the in-store shopping experience in comparison to online shopping. The research showed that people preferred to go into the shop with friends and try on the product before buying. The concept of buying a product you only seen and having it arrive in a box didn’t seem quite so glamorous.

ASOS wanted to try and change the mindset and set about their #ASOSUnbox campaign through VIne. Their goal was to have ASOS customers post Vines of them opening their delivered products. The campaign gained a good response and evoked creative Vines from their customer whist getting people talking about ASOS as a whole.

This campaign enticed customers to post their Vines by offering prizes for the best videos. This put the creativity into the hands of the customer and Vine specialists, gaining a great response and in turn a lot of entertaining Vine’s where created for the brand.

Watch some of the entries here: 

What can Vine do for Your Company?

• Show Your Personality:       

Vine is a great tool in adding more personality to your brand. It can be used to show behind the scenes of your company and interact with customers more on a human level.

• Express Creativity:                

Vine provides an opportunity for both the brand and its customers to be creative, especially when done through the format of a competition where the best Vine’s can win prizes.

• A lot of Retweets:                 

Vine videos are short and easy to share with top vine’s getting up to 45,000 retweets, resulting in high exposure of your brand.

For any tips and advice on using Vine, please contact us

 

Content Writing: An Inbound Marketing Essential

Content Writing:

 

Content Writing

Content writing is a form of inbound marketing which many marketers having taken a great interest in. This involves writing blogs or articles about topics which relate to your company. This content is given out freely to the public and is a good way of connecting with your customers and sharing your knowledge presenting you as the expert in your field.

The content will involve a mix of topics and formats around topics that are relevant to your target market and information that will help them move closer to using your services or purchasing your products.
The approach is not promotional and doesn’t involve hard sales language. The content is more focused on relevancy, interesting, compelling and practical information. The content could be a review of a new product or a piece on the changing environment of an industry, a relevant event or a question or comment to get engagement or interaction from the reader It should help draw parallels between what is important to the customer and what the company stands for.

Research carried out by Hubspot revealed that those who blogged recorded 55% more visitors than those who didn’t, showing the power good content can have. However, for this content to succeed in warming your brand to current and potential customers; it has to be good!

 

9/10 Business to Business (B2B) companies say that they will be producing more content than they did last year. This means that there will be a constant stream of content covering every area of business. So you will need to make your content stand out from the crowd and be beneficial to the reader, offering good advice and a critical outlook, so that it has a relevant impact on the customer’s viewpoint.

When writing a blog try to create educational, thought provoking content related to your company. Think of what you would be more likely to share or comment on, don’t focus on  sales and talking about what you do.

Your website and blog content should be used in conjunction with other inbound marketing tactics such as SEO and Social Media, including the search terms you are targeting as a business so that your content will show up in search engine results.

Social media is a great tool for making people aware of your website content or your blog. By leaving links to your blog on social media sites, customers might then explore the rest of your site having read your piece. This could lead to sales and feedback.

Why use content writing?

 

Build Customer Relationships:  

• With good content writing you can build strong relationships with current and potential customers. At Webresults we can help you devise a content plan and create strong and compelling content

 

Give Customers an insight into you:    

• Good content writing can give customers an insight into what it is your company is passionate about and puts a human voice behind the brand. This will build trust with your customers

Create Natural Interest:             

• Content writing is a good way of gaining natural interest in your brand from potential customers. Customers will also view your brand more favourably to those who force advertising at them constantly

      Building your rankings on the search engines:

• Publishing relevant content, that is optimised and around topics that your target market are searching around and interested in, will offer more opportunity for the search engines to pick up your information pieces/articles and by your readers liking and sharing your content, they are giving the search engines more reasons to rank your content above other similar content.

Present you as the expert in your field- Having a strong content plan will build the profile of your business as well as your own professional profile, giving more credibility in your business and your services.

 

For more information and advice on good content writing, contact us at: http://www.webresults.ie/contact

New Business and Social Media Marketing

Social media marketing and your new business, are you up to date?  Read our article for more information on how to use social media for your new business.

To read the full article, visit New Business and Social Media Marketing.

For more help on social media marketing and web marketing, contact us.  For more information on this topic, click here.

Optimising Your Social Media Publishing

Do you think about when and where you’re publishing when you use your social media?  Read our article on Optimising Your Social Media Publishing to gain a greater understanding of how you can use your data to optimise your publishing now!

To read the full article, visit Optimising Your Social Media Publishing.

For more information about web analytics and web marketing, contact us.  For more information on this topic, click here.

Mobile Marketing and Social Media, Are You Onboard?

Smartphone sales are increasing every day, are you marketing online and on mobile? Do you know what mobile marketing can do for your business?

Mobile phones are everywhere. If you are in a public place you will no doubt see dozens of them. These people are not always on a call, but they may be on the internet. Find out more about Mobile Marketing and what it can do for your business by reading the full article!

To find out more about mobile marketing and web marketing, contact us. For more information on this topic, click here.

 

Why Google+ Should Be Part Of Your Small Business Marketing Plan

Are you a small business wondering if Google Plus is for you? Find out more about the perks of social media for small business in this article where we explore the perks of Google Plus and why we think it has yet to show its full potential. To read the full article, visit Why Google+ Should Be Part Of Your Small Business Marketing Plan.

For more on Social Media checkout our other Social Media articles.

For more info on our Social Media Management services contact us on 01 2071872 or via our contact form.